Magical Moorea and Club Bali Hai...Laid-back Tahiti...Jim's Deal of the Day

PAOPAO, Moorea, Tahiti - If you dream about a place for, oh, 40 years it can be disappointing when you finally get there. So I deliberately kept my expectations to a minimum as I planned my trip to Tahiti.

I didn't need to curb my enthusiasm. So far, this place is as magical as I expected. Moorea has towering mountains that plunge to the sea; giant spires with basalt fingers that pierce the sky; stunningly clear waters teeming with jackfish and manta rays and striped yellow and black angel fish, and, of course, enough palm trees to fill any picture frame.

Wonderful, wonderful stuff. But as much as the scenery is spectacular, I adore the people. Can't say I've been all around the world, but I've been enough places to think it's hard to a Tahitian for friendliness.

I was up and at 'em early on Sunday, heading from the Manava Suites (not Maneva, as I wrote in a sleepy state on Sunday) on the island of Tahiti to a boat bound for Moorea, just 12 miles away. My driver, Ruth, who didn't want to pass along her last name, was carrying on about all sorts of wonderful Tahitian customs.

"The boat ride to Moorea is five minutes," she told me as pulled away from the hotel. "Sorry, I mean 25 minutes."

"It's too early for me," she said by way of explanation, it being 8 a.m. "People shouldn't work so early," she said. Then she paused and laughed. "They shouldn't have to work at all."

Ruth listened to me talk about my love for ancient Polynesian canoes and drove me around for 20 minutes trying to find one that had been christened the day before. When we couldn't find it, she insisted on taking me to the market as I had at least 10 minutes to walk around before catching my ferry.

A great lady.

When I got to Club Bali Hai in Moorea (more on that later in the travel section), I went across the street  and looked into renting a moped for an island tour. Jay Carlisle at Club Bali Hai was aghast at the idea of my facing Moorea's drivers, and the woman at Albert Rent a Car thought maybe a dune buggy would be better.

"You can try ours but we only ones with big engines and they're expensive. Europcar has smaller ones. Call them and you'll save a lot of money."

Yeah, can you imagine a rental car agency at Pearson suggesting a tourist try the counter down the hall? I didn't think so.

As it turned out, it was too muchh of a hassle to get the buggy so I've got a Ford Fiesta and plan to bomb around the island today, then check into the Pearl Resort for some snorkeling and a nice meal. Pretty tough, I know.

FERRY TO MOOREA

The ferry boat ride over was a blast. Hot as blazes in the sun but you get lovely views back at Tahiti and over to Moorea, which many observers say is the loveliest island in the Tahiti group.

It's lkinda ike the Pitons in St. Lucia multiplied by a dozen. There's somewhat similar scenery on the north shore of Kauai but not with hotels that offer such close-up views of the cliffs and jagged shards of mountain all clad in deep green.

This being French Polynesia, the food counter on the boat offered up jambon sandwiches on fresh baguettes. They also sell fresh baguettes at the Mobil gas station across the street from Club Bali Hai.

Great pineapple juice, too, of course. I'm sipping one now in a tall, froster glass as I type my entry for the day at a hotel down the road from the Bali Hai, which doesn't have Internet but has some overwater bungalows, a terrific staff and a great spot for breakfast and lunch called the Blue Pineapple.

JIM'S DEAL OF THE DAY

Who wants to visit Minnesota in November and December? Die-hard shoppers and mall aficionados, that’s who. Minnesota is where you’ll find the Mall of America, with its 520 shops, four major department stores (Bloomingdale’s, Macy’s, Nordstrom and Sears), the Nickelodeon Universe theme park with 24 rides and enough square footage to house Yankee Stadium seven times over. Boutique hotel Le Bourget Aero Suites in Bloomington is a five minute drive from the Mall of America and from now through the end of December rates start at $99 (U.S.), a savings of 20 per cent off typical standard rates at this time of year. Le Bourget has 160 suites and free shuttle service to the Mall of America. See www.lebourgethotel.com.

Sunrise in Tahiti...Naked (nearly) front-deskers...and Hoppity Birds

PAPEETE, Tahiti - Boy, it gets light early here.

I deliberately left the drapes open most of the way so I'd be able to roll over in the morning and look out on the garden next to my unit at the Maneva Suites here in Tahiti. What I didn't count on was sunrise around 5:15 a.m.

The sun wasn't up from behind the mountains behind my hotel, but the light was already getting fairly bright by 5:30, so what the heck. Cancel the 6:45 wakeup call and go out to the water.

The first thing I noticed was that thundering, cracking sound of surf on a reef. I've been places where you get loud surf on the rocks, but this was my first time hearing them fall in impeded anger on a tropical reef. Even from hundreds of yards away (it's hard to tell), the sound was awesome.

I didn't go for a swim but I could see tiny, bright blue fishes and striped black and grey wrasses (maybe???) under the water out by the pier they've built here. There's no beach at the resort but they kinda created a couple small ones; one of them next to the infinity pool that looks out toward Moorea (photo).

Surfers were out, and a few boats were heading through the break and out towards the not so calm-looking Pacific Ocean.

A great breakfast with a couple kinds of sausages, plus fresh pineapple, yogurt, brie cheese, toasty baguettes with French butter (they import damned near everything here) and some lovely, dark coffee with hot milk (gotta love France).

On to Moorea today to stay at a place called Club Bali Hai; built by a group of southern California types who built what are believed to be the world's first-ever overwater bungalows. A couple of them - they're called the Bali Hai Boys even though they're in their 60s or 70s I think - still live in and around the resort and I'm supposed to chat with one tonight.

NOT SOMETHING YOU'LL SEE AT THE ROYAL YORK

As I walked over to breakfast, I stopped to get some change for a tip for my room cleaners. Couldn't help noticing the guy behind the desk, a barrel-chested guy verging on roly-poly around the middle (not that I'm one to talk) was wearing just a sarong around his waist and a couple of long, looping necklaces and a couple nice-looking tattoos.

I know it's customary around here but I don't remember seeing anybody working shirtless in Hawaii, so I probably did a bit of a double take. It's perfectly normal in these parts. Just not something I'm used to.

HOPPITIES!

My family took a trip to Maui when I was a kid (yeah I was pretty lucky; still am) and I fell in love with these birds that used to hop around the lawn. I called them Hoppity's or Hoppities, but they're actually wild mynah birds. Nothing really special about them but they always conjure up pleasant memories of my Mom and Dad and sister and the friends we used to be able to take with us to Napili Beach and west Maui.

I spotted a couple this morning on my early walk and couldn't help smiling.

Tahiti in the Dark...

PAPEETE, Tahiti - Well, I made it. I just don't know exactly where I am at the moment.

Well, that's not quite true. It's a nice-looking resort called the Manava Suites, and it's about 10 minutes from the airport. But it was 11 p.m. local time when I arrived and I didn't get my luggage for an hour, so now it's 1 a.m.

I gotta get up in a few hours to catch a boat to Moorea, so I won't have much time to check out the main island of Tahiti.

There's a full moon, and it's certainly warm and lush and there's palm trees and all that. But it's pretty hard to get any kind of a take on a place at midnight, especially on Halloween. I don't know if there are always so many teens out and about on a Saturday night, but they certainly were in evidence here as we drove to the hotel.

But no problems, no real issues except the bar's closed and it's hard to get a Tahitian punch out of your bathroom sink. So I'll have to wait for that for Club Bali Hai in Moorea, where I'm headed tomorrow.

I will say that although the luggage was REALLY slow, it was fun to arrive and be greeted by a trio of local singers. One guy was plucking a guitar, another had something that looked like a ukelele and the final guy was playing kind of a standup string bass; not unlike something you'd see in a bluegrass festival or some such.

Very nice. And everyone got a small white flower to put behind their ear when they got off the airplane and went to the terminal. Ditto for when we got on board our Air Tahiti Nui flight from LA, which took nearly nine hours.

Everyone seems to get in the spirit of these things, and I didn't spot many folks without a flower adorning their ear. Me, too, if you really want to know. Looked pretty fetching, too.

I won't have a chance to check out the main island, as I said. But folks say it's kinda like the Honolulu of Tahiti; it's a fine entry point but if you really want to get a feel for the place you get to the outer islands. I'm supposed to visit Moorea, Raiatea, Taha'a, Huahine and Bora Bora by the time I finish next Saturday, so I'm hoping for the best.

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